Two local MLAs were among 33 newly elected members who received a full year's contribution to their RRSPs, after just three weeks work in 2008.
As the controversy over MLA pay continued to reverberate at the legislature, another aspect emerged this week. After the 2008 campaign, when local MLAs Ken Allred and Jeff Johnson were first elected, they along with all of the new MLAs from the government and opposition received $9,500 for an RRSP allowance.
The government's fiscal year begins on April 1, but the MLAs who were elected on March 3 were paid for the year prior, the 2007- 2008 fiscal year, even though they had been around for just a few weeks of it.
Allred said he wasn't aware that the RRSP contribution was structured that way and admits it doesn't seem appropriate.
"If that was for the previous year then it doesn't sound reasonable," he said. "I sort of assumed it was for the calendar year."
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the idea that someone would get a full contribution from their employer after just a few weeks worth of work is a serious problem.
"That is pretty disgusting to be honest, for taxpayers to be putting in a full year's contribution for only four weeks worth of work," said spokesperson Jordan Bateman. "In the real world, in the non-political world, you are paid for the work you do and the time you are actually at the job."
Speaker Ken Kowalski brought the issue up last year at a meeting of the legislature's members' services committee and got unanimous support for a change to prevent future problems.
Under the change, an MLA will only qualify for a contribution if they serve at least three months in office.
At the time he said if a new crop of MLAs were elected a few days before the end of the fiscal year it would be a serious cost to the province's treasury.
"You could conceivably see all 87 members defeated, 87 new members, and if you didn't have this provision of three months or something similar to it, you would have 87 times $11,000 times two," Kowalski is quoted in a transcript of the hearing.
Committee pay
Earlier this month the taxpayers' federation raised another issue with how MLAs are paid, pointing to a legislature committee that hadn't met since 2008, but was still paying its members $1,000 a month.
Since the federation handed out a dubious taxpayer waste award to the committee, opposition MLAs from the Wildrose and the Alberta Liberals have returned all of the funds they were paid for sitting on the it.
Government MLAs announced just this week they are returning part of the money, about $5,000, representing the time they have sat on the committee since Premier Alison Redford was sworn in.
Allred said the MLA pay structure, which sees them paid a base salary, as well as additional funds for sitting on committees, is far too complicated.
"There is not much question that people don't understand it. Even I don't fully understand it to be perfectly honest with you."
Allred, who was the lowest paid MLA in the legislature last year, said the challenge of one salary for all work is that some MLAs sit on more committees and thus do more work than others.
On his fellow government MLAs move this week to return some of their committee pay, Allred said he wasn't involved in the caucus discussion about the issue, but he believes members had to make up their own mind.
"It is something that each individual has to justify and they will pay for it at the polls if their constituents don't like it."
